On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:42 AM, Keith Lofstrom <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Good question. Since I manage an open source backup /and restore/ > project, I spend a lot of time thinking about restore. When an > identifiable data file goes away, then a file-based restore system > is a good way to go. But how often can an unsophisticated user > identify that the problem is in fact a missing data file, go to > a backup, and go through a correct file restore procedure and > get running again? > <Snip scenarios> Yeah, makes sense. Still seems like a lot to think about. I wonder if one could do the initial dd-based image creation and then use rsync (robocopy?) to do more atomic updates of the image. This is essentially how SuperDuper for OSX works, and it's real nice to work with. It's come as close to "ideal" consumer backup as anything I've seen. > But sadly, the only usable speech recognition app > for her needs, Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Medical, runs only on > Windoze, with all the enormous freight of problems that implies. Agreed. I always think of voice speech recognition as being a very niche need, but I know a lot of people who would use it if they could afford to / get it on their platform of choice. There was some OSS speech recognition stuff that was active in the 90's, but I haven't heard or seen anything about it in years. As I recall it was based on some code with ancestral ties to Dragon. > And yes, M$ copy protection may interfere with all this. We > will see. It won't. I've used dd-copied system images with every flavor of Windows out there, and they have yet to complain so long as they are connecting the same computer as they were originally installed to. It still seems to me that there should be an option that would be less...ritualistic. I'd be surprised if the backup raindance you propose actually gets done with any kind of frequency. I understand Acronis TrueImage creates "bootable backups", and at only $50 for the "home" version, it will likely end up being a net savings vs rolling your own for an environment you're not familiar with. Of course, it's not validated on 7, but I'd wager it'll work given the minor internal changes between 7 and Vista. I've also heard good things about SyncBackSE. Supposedly it's comparable to SuperDuper that I mention above. QH _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
